Questions for thought 1
As the new year starts, we face many issues. Some arise daily. Others reside in the background until events force them on us. These broad philosophical issues often are questions we need to answer before they become crucial.
Over the next several posts we will raise a variety of Questions for Thought. Hopefully, as you consider answers, you and your students will address some important principles of scholastic journalism.
We hope these questions might prove to be worthy assignments and that you might share some of your activities through the comments section here.
Question #1:
School officials argue prior review is important because school media represent the image of the school to the community. Analyze this argument and make two sets of recommendations: one supporting prior review, the other arguing against it. Develop criteria and arguments for each position. Find a neutral audience or class and arrange a debate to generate discussion and – hopefully – an action plan on the subject.
Read More#WPFD
While you are re-posting “Free the press — all of it. http://bit.ly/f3wE2Y, be sure to go to #wpfd on Twitter, to add your comments that a strong segment of media in the United States is also not free: that of the scholastic media.
Read MoreOverland situation settled – for now – although questions remain
According to both the Denver Post and the Student Press Law Center, the Overland Scout will retain its adviser and lose prior review – for the remainder of this year’s issues.
Unsettled, however, is what happens next year, both to the Scout and to the adviser.
“School and district officials maintain that the situation was a misunderstanding and that the newspaper was never shut down,” the Post reported April 4. “Cherry Creek School District spokeswoman Tustin Amole said that Lundie (the school’s principal) was unaware of a separate printing fund the district provides for printing newspapers and thought that they did not have the budget for further issues.”
SPLC attorney advocate Adam Goldstein said the problems have not been resolved, but that it was a good first step.
“Firing the adviser in May for what the students wrote isn’t more permissible than it is in March,” he said. “We still need assurances that this program will still exist as vibrant as it ever has.”
Unanswered questions remain:
• The school reportedly wants to move the existing publication online, although it now will not permit online student media to use last names. That policy would have to be changed, and it is not known how an online publication would fit into existing student media policies.
• With such a move, will the district retain the adviser or seek someone else?
• Will the district attempt to reinstate prior review?
• Will the idea of moving from print to online journalism affect other schools in the district?
• Will the principal’s idea for change alter existing concepts of journalism the district teaches and students practice at other schools?
For the latest information, please check out these sources:
• Overland High School official statement from the principal and official policy statement
• Overland High School relents
• Overland principal: student newspaper to continue publishing
Read MoreProfessional allies against censorship
Those looking for allies in their fight against censorship should consider professional organizations.
Check out support the Colorado Society of Professional Journalists gave students of the Overland Scout today.
The Board of Directors of the Colorado Pro Chapter of SPJ wrote in their letter to the Cherry Creek District Superintendent and Board, “Specific provisions exist that allow for prior restraint by school administrators, including if a story is obscene, false or libelous. None of these conditions appear to be involved in the Scout case.” Read the entire letter here and here.
Scout student journalists have argued the school prevented publication of an article that could have been published under Colorado law, stopped further publication of the newspaper and removed their adviser. The school has responded with shifting positions but now says the paper will continue to publish.
Even as we continue to support these students and their adviser, we, as advisers, need to be conduits for the importance of student free and journalistically responsible expression. We must model it, teach it and lobby for it whether we face review and restraint ourselves or are pinnacles of freedom.
Start with administrators; start with the community. But no matter where we start, we must illuminate the fact that the basis of a continuing, intelligent democracy lives and grows with a strong and viable journalism program. It starts where students are challenged to think, to make decisions and to be responsible as they apply what they learn without prior review or restraint.
Anything less – anything – undermines the core of freedoms we say we cherish and those in other lands fight to attain.
Follow the Colorado situation by checking these links.
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